The Mrs and the Man
by QueenMegaera
Summary: She's on a constant countdown to the day when the Doctor won't have met her. He has all the time in the universe. For both of them, every moment with the Doctor counts. Aka How Captain Jack Harkness got his Time Vortex Manipulator back. (Another one-shot from the depths of my hard drive. Doctor-Jack-friendship/bromance, background canon pairings.)


A/N: _I believe Angst and Humour are carrying on an affair behind my back. Whenever I sit down to have some quality keyboard-time with one of them, the other invariably comes around and knocks on the door. They just won't be separated, even when I assure them it's just for this one story. It's exasperating, but I'm learning to live with it_.

Appearing pairings:_ 11th Doctor/River, Amy/Rory, Jack/everyone _

Spoilers: _Torchwood up to and including Miracle Day, Doctor Who up to and including series 6. _

Other warnings: _Jack being Jack. River being River._

* * *

**The Mrs and the Man**

_Year 3724: The Moon Herpfnon._

Walking through the bicentennial market on the moon Herpfnon, Jack was explaining something about the strange substance the locals called cheese (it was blue, highly intoxicating and not to be missed) when Rex suddenly drew a gun and ran off shouting: "That was her!"

Jack sighed.

He had met up with Rex again only a decade ago. They had a habit of falling out – well, falling out worse than usual – every other century or so, and sometimes it could take yet another few centuries before their paths crossed again. Usually the falling-out's happened because Rex got fed up with Jack's ways, which was frankly getting a bit ridiculous. Jack had quickly learnt that he was never going to get Rex into bed, and he was fine with that, but if Rex thought Jack would stop flirting – thought he _could _stop flirting – then clearly they hadn't known each other long enough yet.

But they had known each other for more than a millennium now, and Jack was pretty sure Rex _did _understand it. A lot of the time he even joked back. It just wasn't Rex's own way, and when there was only one person in the universe who wouldn't eventually die away from you, it unfortunately also got very easy to grow tired of the little flaws in that persons character.

Not that Jack himself considered the compulsive flirting a flaw. Ever.

And frankly speaking, Rex's habit of pulling out a weapon and running off was a bit annoying too. The present situation speaking for itself on that account.

"It was who?" Jack asked as he caught up with the other man.

"The woman who bought your hand."

Oh. Her.

**DWTWDWTW**

A couple of years earlier they had been minding their own business (perhaps hunting down a few smugglers, but hey, who said that wasn't their business) when, out of the blue, they had been attacked by a particularly vicious bunch of four-armed creatures, one of whom had thought it a good idea to chop off Jack's arm right above his time vortex manipulator and run off with the limb without as much as a "see you around, sweetheart" or even "don't call me, I'll call you." Rex had been forced to shoot him in the head so that his hand would grow back. Not the nicest way to go, but infinitely better than a lot of ways Jack had died – including bleeding to death from a severed limb on a backwards little asteroid that didn't have hospitals.

They had eventually tracked down the vortex manipulator to an old acquaintance of Jack's, a 'businessman' called Dorian, only to find out that it had just been sold. They had barely had time to see the back of the buyer before she disappeared to some other time, using said stolen equipment.

On the plus side, Jack thought, it had been a nice view.

And here that pretty backside and that cascade of curls was again, right ahead of him. Rex had almost caught up with the mystery-woman when she made a sharp turn and hurled herself towards a very familiar blue door.

"Rex, wait!" Jack shouted, just as the other man followed their prey into the TARDIS. He slowed down, panted, and sighed.

"Great."

**DWTWDWTW**

"No, no, no!" a new, yet familiar, voice shouted as Jack walked in to the TARDIS. "No. Firearms. In my. TARDIS."

Up ahead was a decidedly different TARDIS-console than the one Jack remembered. A handsome young man in an early-21st-century hipster outfit, bowtie and all, stood between Rex and the curly-haired woman. The latter two were pointing guns at each other. Jack thought he recognized the one the woman was holding.

"Don't you dare hurt her!" a girl cried behind them. A tall young man with a big nose (not bad-looking, in a bumbling, awkward, boy-next-door way) was holding back a redhead with the legs of a supermodel. Jack fought the reflex to whistle. There was, as the Doctor had always insisted, a time and a place for these things. Jack felt he deserved a medal for his restraint, though.

"Shut up, Pond," the Doctor interrupted her (because it was the Doctor, it had to be), clearly distressed if he would address a companion in such a rude manner. The girl seemed to realise this too, and snapped her mouth shut.

"Rex!" Jack called as he walked towards the central trio. "Put the gun down."

"It's her!" Rex bellowed, not following the order and not looking away from the woman for a second. "She's the one, I swear it!"

Jack sighed.

"Yeah, I know. Now do as the Doctor tells you."

Rex lowered the gun and stared at the man – or boy, really – in the bow tie. The "boy" looked at Jack, surprise and – was that happiness? Jack hoped it was – showing as clear on his face as if he had really been as young as he looked.

"Captain!"

It didn't matter how many times that face changed; it never failed to put a smile on Jack's.

"Hello, Doc. Tell me, do you always become younger when you regenerate, or is it something you've taken up since you met me, just to be a tease?"

"No, I don't, and, no, it isn't," the Doctor said. "Leave out the introductory flirting and tell your _friend_ here that it's a very bad idea to be pointing guns at my wife, would you, please?"

And here Jack had thought that the universe couldn't shock him anymore.

"I'm not that kind of friend," Rex interjected. "And _you're_ 'The Doctor'? Really? The intergalactically famous Doctor is a kid with the dress sense of a twentieth century senior citizen?"

"_Wife_?" was all Jack could say. "Wow. Are you _sure _you're the Doctor?"

The redhead sighed and walked up to stand by the Doctor's shoulder, her boyfriend following closely behind.

"Doctor, _who_ are these people?"

The Doctor began to look pained and Rex looked just about ready to raise the gun again. Jack thought it was time to intervene and take away some of all this unnecessary tension.

"Hello. Captain Jack Harkness, nice to meet you."

"Amy Pond."

The redhead shook his hand and preened in the light of Jack's smile for a moment, but then, as an afterthought, took a step backwards and linked arms with the tall boy, and Jack noticed the ring on her hand.

"This is Rory, my husband," she said, leaning on his arm.

Rory was glaring at Jack, but seemed pacified when his wife was back at his side. Two married couples in the TARDIS? Jack couldn't believe it.

"Nice to meet you, Mr Pond," Jack said and levelled an equally charming grin at him for good measure. The boy looked a bit confounded and opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it again without having made a sound.

"This is my friend Rex," Jack continued." You'll have to excuse his bad temper, he used to be a cop." Rex scoffed at that, but Jack pretended not to notice. "We followed your lady here because we saw her buying stolen goods off of a Mr Dorian some years back." He turned to the woman and reached out his hand. "Doctor River Song, I presume?"

The woman looked at him and showed a smile Jack would have been proud of himself.

"Oh, so you _have_ heard of me, have you?" she said, voice all milk and honey, looking at Jack through her eyelashes.

The way the Doctor glared at her, Jack could practically hear the "Stop it!" It was an interesting experience to see that look directed at someone else for a change.

"Dorian's nice to me like that," Jack offered. "He did tell me to stay away from you because you had powerful friends. I guess I never told him I used to travel with the Doc myself."

The redhead raised an eyebrow. The Doctor looked away from her.

"Oh, I know," Dr Song leered. "I've met you before."

Her eyes never looked away from Jack's for a second. They sparkled.

"You have?"

Right. _Time travellers_. It had been a while since he met any.

The Doctor looked like he was about to choke.

"You have?" he echoed.

Song winked at – her husband? Was he really? Jack just couldn't imagine it. But if the Doctor would marry anyone …

"Spoilers," she said, her voice nearly a purr.

"Well," Jack replied, not wanting to be bested, "I look forward to it already."

"Oh, you should, Captain," she said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, "you really should."

"Oi!" The Doctor finally seemed to catch some air. "Stop it!"

It was definitely aimed at Dr Song. Jack chuckled.

"Oh,_ I don't mind_," he said.

Sensing that the Doctor was about to either slap someone or cry – either scenario being equally frightening – Jack turned the charm down a few notches and returned to the question at hand.

"Doctor Song, I believe you have something of mine."

She shrugged.

"Well, he was never really _yours_, was he?"

The young couple, who had been staring at them all through the short exchange of banter, now turned to stare at the Doctor. The Doc and Jack stared at River Song, and River Song and Rex stared at Jack.

"_My time vortex manipulator,_" Jack said, dropping the charm entirely (or at least as much as he ever could).

Doctor Song pretended to be surprised.

"Oh, this little thing?" She tutted and shook her head at him. "Finders keepers, Captain."

"Oh, so someone just _found_ my severed hand lying around, did they?"

"I hear it happens sometimes," the Doctor muttered under his breath.

The eagle-nose looked between Jack and the Doc.

"What is he talking about?" he whispered to the Doctor. "He's got two hands."

"Yeah," Jack said, "it grew back when I regenerated. It was still pretty painful to have it chopped off because _some fussy customer_ was asking around for a vortex manipulator!"

"You're a timelord?" the redhead asked, not concealing her amazement.

"No, he's human," Doctor Song corrected without breaking eye-contact with Jack, "he's just immortal."

Eagle-nose gave her a sceptic look.

"He's _just_ immortal?"

"His face doesn't change," Dr Song smiled, "it just gets _older_."

"_Hey!" _Jack protested, giving her an insulted frown. Behind him, Rex chuckled. "That's enough from you, _young lady_." He spun around and added to Rex: "And you can remove that smile, Agent Matheson, you're not gonna get any younger yourself."

Rex raised his hands in surrender. Jack turned back to the others to find that Dr Song had taken a step back, and that the Doctor was looking between him and Rex, his eyes widening by the second.

"He's ... No! Jack! _No_!"

Of course. The Doc could feel it. Jack had forgotten about that.

"Hey, it wasn't exactly my fault! He brought it on himself!" Jack said, pointing at Rex.

Rex crossed his arms.

"I didn't know your damned blood was gonna make me immortal, Harkness."

"Yeah? Neither did I, this thing didn't exactly come with a handbook!"

The Doc sighed.

"So there's _two_? _Two_ fixed points running around in time and space like ..." He ran up to the console and began to check several monitors, talking all the while: "It's a wonder the TARDIS hasn't imploded! What ... _why_? Why are you doing this to me? Isn't it enough that I have to deal with _you_?"

Jack levelled a glare at him. Clearly the Doc's manners still left a little something to be desired.

"Maybe for you it is, but it's not very fair to me, is it? I wouldn't have wished this on my worst enemy; but now that there _is_ someone else in this universe I can actually have a long-term friendship with, without knowing for a fact that I'm going to get them killed down the line, that's actually kind of nice. I thought you if anyone would understand that."

The Doctor's eyes softened, and Jack saw a glimpse of an all-too-familiar pain behind them.

"Yes. You're right, of course."

The Doctor's hands stilled, leaving the buttons and levers of the new-and-improved console alone.

"River," he said, "where are we? Easter Island? Have we done Easter Island yet?"

If the question sounded as strange to Dr Song as it did to Jack, she didn't let on.

"Yes," she said.

"Lake Silencio?"

A short pause.

"Yes. Both times."

"Demon's Run?"

"Yes." Now there were tears in Dr Song's voice.

The Doctor nodded.

"Then I think you should give the Captain his Time Vortex Manipulator."

She looked at him in silence for a moment. When she spoke, it was barely a whisper.

"Is it that late?" she said.

The Doctor hung his head.

"Spoilers."

Nothing was heard in the TARDIS but the soft humming of her engines. Jack didn't understand it all, but he understood enough. After all, he had been alive for a long, long time.

Without another word, River Song removed the black bracelet from her arm and handed it to Jack.

"And the squareness gun?" Jack asked.

She looked honestly surprised. So did the Doctor. Hadn't he spotted it?

"This was yours?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, you left it in the TARDIS, honey. That one_ is_ finders keepers."

"Look …"

But the Doctor interrupted him.

"Let her keep it Jack." And then, so softly Jack didn't believe anyone else heard it: "She's going to need it."

Jack couldn't argue when a time lord made insinuations like that. He looked at River Song again, re-evaluating what he saw.

"You're meeting in the wrong order, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes," they both answered at the same time.

He looked at River Song's eyes again. They looked older than the rest of her.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Oh, don't be," she said with a smile that was only a little bit forced. "It has its perks." And then the smile grew into a conspiratorial grin as she leaned forward and added: "You wouldn't believe how much knowing more than him allows me to boss him around."

Jack felt his own grin return full force.

"Oh, I bet you don't need the time continuum to help you with that."

The Doctor cleared his throat.

"Don't you have anywhere else to be, Jack?"

"We did, actually," Rex said.

Funny. Jack had almost forgotten about him. River didn't move an inch.

"He gets ever so jealous," she said, "when he fancies someone. He gets testy if they as much as look at someone else."

Jack laughed.

"Is that so? I never knew I was so lucky!"

The Doctor huffed.

"She meant _her_!" he said.

"Yeah." Jack smiled. "I know."

"You had something to do?" The Doctor repeated.

"They could come along," the redhead suggested. She looked as if she was enjoying herself immensely, watching the scene unfold.

"No," Jack and the Doctor said in unison and then turned to look at each other, both a bit surprised.

"We were in the middle of something. Don't want to go hopping off this world just yet," Jack explained.

"I could finish up here," Rex said. "If you want to go ..."

Rex might not have met the Doctor before, but he had heard about him from Jack. Incessantly. He knew how much his time with the Doctor meant to Jack.

"Thanks, but no," Jack said, looking at the Doctor instead of at Rex. "Not this time."

The Doctor nodded.

**DWTWDWTW**

After a moment of silence Rex cleared his throat.

"Yes. We should go," Jack said. Better to leave now, before it got even harder. Still, he couldn't look away from the Doctor. The Doctor nodded.

"Well. Right. Good luck. Don't let us keep you."

The Doctor spoke in starts in a soft, nearly hesitant voice. It seemed to be a pattern for him in this new incarnation. It made him seem vulnerable in a way he never had in the time Jack had known him.

"Well?" Jack said.

The Doctor looked nonplussed.

"Well what?"

"Don't I even get a hug?"

The Doctor huffed and rolled his eyes, and Jack smiled.

"See you around, doc," he said and turned to leave.

"Oh, alright then," the Doctor called out behind him. His tone made it sound as if he'd just agreed to something horribly boring and humiliating, but the speed with which he was by Jack's side belied it.

Two arms were flung around Jack's body almost before he could react. He hesitated for a second before he hugged back, out of sheer surprise. The Doctor was slightly shorter than he had been in the two incarnations Jack had met before, but not quite as skinny as the last one.

"But mind where you put your hands," the Doctor added gruffly.

Jack laughed. He wrapped his arms tightly around the other man, until the Doctor's feet lifted from the floor. The Doc made an undignified little yelp and kicked Jack's shin, and Jack put him back down, reluctantly letting him go. He stared down in amazement at the man in front of him. This Doctor was different. He talked a big game, but carried his heart ... not on his sleeve, not for everyone to see, but just underneath the cuff, if you knew where to look.

Once, for a short time, Jack had hated the Doctor for leaving him alone on earth when horrible things happened; he had wanted to scream at him that he only came and saved the day when it suited him, when it didn't include having to watch the worst of humanity like Jack had. He knew better now. It was all there in the Doctor's eyes: the pain of being the one other people died for, of watching worlds burn in your wake, of outliving all the ones you've ever loved and knowing you always will. How could he blame the Doctor for avoiding another holocaust if he could?

The urge to stay was almost overwhelming. The urge to run away was stronger.

He didn't know what to say. There was a lump in his throat and he was afraid speaking would give it away.

The Doctor saved him.

"See you around, Captain."

The fondness in his voice seemed to break the pieces of Jack's heart even further and glue them together at the same time.

He saluted, and smiled when the Doctor actually, albeit clumsily, returned the gesture – and then he walked out of the TARDIS with Rex in tow. As he gave the doorframe one last, fond pat farewell, he heard the Doctor speak inside:

"I'm surprised you kept so quiet."

It was the girl that answered.

"Oh, why interrupt when you were giving me so much material?"

Jack smiled and walked away from the blue box.

**DWTWDWTW**

They were three blocks away when a voice called out behind them.

"Hey! Captain!"

Jack turned around and saw the redheaded girl running towards him. He looked behind her, but no husband – or the Doctor – was in sight. Neither was Dr Song, for that matter.

"Miss Pond. Did I forget something?"

"Why won't you travel with us?" she asked, stopping to put her hands on her knees and pant a bit after the run.

She might look like a supermodel, but the sharp look in her eyes told him she was no airhead. Rex just looked at Jack, clearly wondering the same.

"You seem to be quite a crowd already. And we really need to be going."

"No we don't," Rex said. Traitor.

The redhead fixed Jack with a stare.

"I can't stay with him forever," she said. This obviously pained her. "Rory and I will settle down. Or we'll get killed. Or we'll grow old and die like people do. I hate to think of him alone. He'll have River, for a while. She'll look after him. She's a good girl. But he'll get her killed. He won't tell me so, because he thinks I'd blame him. He thinks I blame him for how she was taken away from me, for never getting raise or hold her in my arms or take care of her ..."

Jack's brain almost fried when he realised what the girl was saying.

"... and he thinks that if I knew he was the reason she died I wouldn't love him anymore. But I know. I see it in his eyes when he thinks I'm not looking. I don't blame him. She'd die for him. That's not his fault. She gets it from her parents."

He thought of Rose, who had been lost in another world with her other Doctor. He thought of Martha, who had run around on earth with Mickey. Once he had pitied them, later he had envied them. Both of them had, at times, possessed that carefree attitude this girl had seemed to have a minute ago in the TARDIS. And while Martha had always looked like a sharp young woman, Rose had occasionally seemed a bit careless and shallow – other impressions this girl had seemed to give off. But now she looked at him with a pain and wisdom in her eyes rivalling both that of Dr Song –her daughter, it seemed – and even of the Doctor – her son-in-law.

The Doctor had really done it this time, hadn't he?

"But you could stay with him," she said. "You could stay with him for as long as he lives."

"Yes," Jack admitted. "I could."

"Then why won't you? Why won't you do that for him?"

Jack took a deep breath.

"Trust me. He wouldn't let me."

"That's not true," she protested. "He clearly likes you. You mean something special to him. I could tell."

"That's why he wouldn't let me. He wouldn't let me do that to myself."

She didn't seem to understand, so he spelled it out:

"Yes, I can be there for him. I can travel the universe with him and never get killed, never die of old age. I could keep him company in the TARDIS for centuries, until the day he died. And then it would be over. Just like your daughter on her backwards journey knows there'll be end, I would know then that I would never meet the Doctor again, because all the days he had to come, I'd already been there. I could live until the end of the universe, never seeing him again. Or I could do this; I could go about my business and run in to him every now and then, take a short trip with him and then jump off again, and I'll know that even if I do live until the end of the universe, I could still run in to him around the next corner. Sometimes, that thought has been all that's kept me alive. No matter how much it would mean for him, he would never take that away from me."

She studied him for a while. He braced himself for being called selfish, but instead he found himself in another unexpected embrace.

This hug was shorter. She pulled back and tried to smile at him, but the smile turned out a bit broken.

"I'm sorry. I should have thought of that," she said.

"You shouldn't have to think of things like that," he countered.

She scoffed. "Welcome to my life. I worry about him. I can't help it. I always do."

Jack had to smile. This was the Doctor all over – marrying Mrs Robinson and getting Miss Supermodel for a mother. He never did things the ordinary way around, did he?

In the distance, someone called her name, and she turned around to look.

"I think your husband is looking for you," Jack pointed out rather unnecessarily.

"Isn't he always," she said, with a tone of exasperated fondness more fit for an old married couple that a pair of newlyweds. She looked back at Jack.

"You'll keep an eye out for him, though?" she said. "Every now and then?"

He nodded.

"Always."

She smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Captain."

He saluted her. It felt fitting.

"My pleasure, ma'am."

He watched as the Doctor's mother-in-law disappeared back into the crowded marketplace, then turned back to Rex, who had stood waiting in silence.

"So this blue cheese you were telling me about," Rex said. "Are we going to try some out?"

"Oh yeah," Jack said with a grin. "Just wait. You're gonna love it."


End file.
